The Wall Street Journal did a big story on the $3000 Stir Kinetic M1 stand-up desk, which promises to eliminate the dangers of too much sitting, a habit some say is as bad as smoking. Joy found a free alternative.

Using her desktop computer, Joy made two small stacks of books and put her keyboard on top of them. She made a separate stack for her mouse. She put her monitor on top of a laser printer. Voila! Everything is just the right height and the printer still works. If she gets tired, there’s a chair nearby. But the prospect of having to take the monitor off the printer, and remove the books from under the keyboard and mouse, just to make everything the right height again, has kept her standing for months. The $3,000 high-tech version adjusts whenever you feel like sitting– which is probably too often.